Four persons, including two Army soldiers and two militants of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit, were killed and three security men wounded in a night-long gunfight that ended on Wednesday morning in South Kashmir.
The police said troops of 55 Rashtriya Rifles (RR), the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Special Operations Group (SOG) of the state police surrounded a house in the Lider Mut village after getting a specific information about the presence of a group of LeT militants.
"Militants started indiscriminate firing at the surrounding security forces, killing two RR troopers on the spot and injuring a CRPF trooper and SOG constable," a senior police officer said.
"The security forces tightened the cordon and engaged militants in a sustained gunfight that lasted for more than 12 hours," he said.
"The encounter has ended and both the holed-up LeT militants have been killed. However, we are still searching the area," he said
He said one residential house and a cowshed were destroyed in the gunfight. Earlier, the same group of militants had fired at a CRPF party in the Lider Mut village, injuring a CRPF trooper and the militants had decamped with a self loading rifle (SLR) rifle on Tuesday afternoon.
The militants later entered a house in the same village which was later on surrounded by the security forces, calling in more reinforcements.